Ammon was startled by the request. After a short pause he asked, “Is it your feeding time already?”
His weak attempt at humor went unnoticed, and he felt silly standing there in his wet underwear, shivering. He noticed Amril staring at the wrapping around his leg, but Amril didn’t mention his apparent injury.
“Quickly, lie down,” Amril said again. “I need blood from an arterial vein. And don’t worry about the pain, I am very good at this.” Ammon didn’t miss the sarcasm in his voice.
Ammon did as he was told as Amril approached him with an enormous needle. As he stepped to Ammon’s side, Amril jerked his arm above his head and held it while he smoothly inserted the needle into the axillary artery that ran under his arm and directly to his heart. It took only a moment to fill the syringe with blood. He then walked over to the partially inflated raft and squirted the blood all over, smearing it with his hands. After tossing the raft overboard, Amril turned to face his shivering passenger. “Now, we must get underway.”
Amril led the way forward to the small cabin and started the boat. Gunning the throttles he turned northeast. After throwing Ammon a huge towel and cotton bathrobe, he motioned to a vinyl chair. Ammon sat down, and Amril closed the hatch door behind them, cutting the sound of the engines to a muffled roar. Amril had turned off all of the boat’s navigation lights, making the speeding watercraft impossible to see in the darkness.
After a moment of silence, Ammon asked, “Why did you have to stick me?”
Amril glanced at his passenger for a second before he replied. “For several reasons,” he said. “First, your death will have to be positively confirmed. By giving them a blood sample, they will have the DNA evidence to do that. But more importantly, by drawing from one of your arterial veins, we will help them identify a probable cause of death.
“You see, blood from a major vein, such as the axillary artery, is easily identified by the amount of oxygen it contains. When they analyze the samples taken from your raft they will conclude that you have suffered a major wound, probably a compound fracture of the arm or leg. It would be expected that you would lose a large amount of blood. Loss of consciousness would shortly follow, and since your raft was only partially inflated, the Americans will then theorize that you must have passed out and slipped peacefully into the cold, dark sea.”
Amril paused for a moment, then chuckled as he continued.
“I can see the accident report now:
“On 18 August, Richard Ammon, Captain, U.S. Air Force, was on a routine training mission over the Yellow Sea. For yet undetermined reasons, his F-16 exploded just prior to air refueling. The aircraft crashed at sea and was destroyed upon impact. Capt Ammon’s body has not been recovered, and we suspect he was a midnight snack for a herd of migrating turtles. The investigation continues.”
Amril continued to chuckle as he poured two steaming cups of coffee into capped mugs with his free hand and passed one over to Ammon. Amril sipped at the bitter brew in silence, then finally concluded. “It is a simple deception, but it will work.”
Ammon said nothing. By now the overcast had thickened and had completely obscured the once bright moon. They traveled in complete darkness. He felt dizzy and had to hold the brass side rail to steady himself in his chair. He began to realize how tired he was. Instead of the coffee, what he really needed was some rest and some time to think.
He stared into the darkness. As the boat sped on, bouncing from wave to wave, Ammon’s head began to slowly bob in rhythm. He listened to the drone of the engines. It was a pleasant sound, somehow comforting. It reminded him of when he was a small boy. Ammon could still picture himself as a child, huddled in the back seat, surrounded by thin wool blankets as his father drove the back streets of the Kasakstov and Prcshingtovalon districts. His father, more adept at drinking than holding down jobs, had finally found a job he could live with delivering newspapers between boroughs in eastern Kiev. The money wasn’t great, but it was enough to buy vodka and food. And since his mother had passed away several years before, his father had insisted that he accompany him on his rounds, rather than be left back in their tiny apartment alone.
As a young boy, Carl Vadym Kostenko was identified as having the potential to complete one of the Kollektive Sicherheit’s most rigorous tracks. He was separated from his family at age nine, and for the next nine years was indoctrinated with the theories of Marx and Lenin. He learned perfect English (with a slight southern accent) and American history and culture. Like American boys his age, he grew up to the music of Tom Petty, U2, and the Boss. He hated country and western. He loved the Dallas Cowboys.
But Carl Kostenko’s education didn’t end there. He also learned how to manipulate friends, communicate secretly with his handler, and operate miniature photographic and communication equipment. He learned how to evaluate others for tendencies of sympathy to his cause. He learned to exploit and deceive and lie. Finally, he was taught how to kill. Efficiently. Quietly. Without a trace. Without leaving a mess. It was a skill he anticipated he would never use, but if it ever became necessary, so be it. It was simply something he would do.
At the age of eighteen, Carl Kostenko found himself planted in the United States, complete with papers, a solid background, and a new identity as Richard Ammon. He entered UCLA, and graduated in three years with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. He received a reserve commission in the United States Air Force. A year later, he completed pilot training and had been flying the F-16 ever since.
During his first years at college, he had literally no contact with his handler. He didn’t even know if he had one. Many times he was left to wonder if he might be on his own. It wasn’t until he was ready to graduate that he was contacted. He was told that they had decided that he should accept his commission in the Air Force. This was very good news for Ammon, for although he would have done whatever was expected of him, he very much wanted to fly.
But like everything about the Kollektive Sicherheit, there were strings attached. No rewards were ever free. Richard Ammon was told that if he didn’t do well enough in pilot training to get a combat aircraft upon graduation, then the agreement to allow him into the Air Force would be terminated. In addition, his superiors would be extremely disappointed in his performance and would have to question his ability to successfully complete future assignments. His whole situation would then he re-evaluated.
Few student pilots entered undergraduate pilot training with as much hidden baggage or secret motivation as did Richard Ammon.
But once he started to fly, Ammon began to relax. He discovered that he was a natural pilot. Flying just seemed to come easily to him.
He remembered clearly the day he knew he would make it. It was on his second sortie in advanced aerobatics in the T-38. The instructor pilot, who occupied the rear seat, was in a sour mood and nearly impossible to please. While completing a simple loop, he had suddenly grabbed the controls from Richard Ammon and snapped back hard on the stick.
“I said, pull more Gs!” he screamed, while pulling the little fighter around in a sharp bank. “You’ve got to G up this aircraft to get it around. Now do it again, and this time keep it coming. When I say pull, I mean pull! Don’t nanny around with the stick!”
Ammon shook his head with disgust, both at his own mistake and at his instructor for being such a jerk. Taking the stick in his right hand, he set up for another loop. Pushing the T-38’s nose toward the earth, he shoved both throttles into afterburner and accelerated quickly to 500 knots, then with a sudden snap, jammed the stick back into his lap. The Talon’s nose arched gracefully skyward as the G meter pegged at seven Gs. Grunting against the strain, he kept the pull in through the top of the loop, then accelerated downward once again. As he reached the bottom of the loop, he should have eased off on the stick and leveled off. But he didn’t. Instead, he kept the aircraft in full afterburner and jammed the stick back into his lap once again. Four times he pushed the aircraft through a graceful arch, constantly pulling seven Gs, forcing his instructor to groan and strain just to keep the blood in his head. At the bottom of the fourth loop, he heard his instructor mutter through the strain of his mask, “Okay, okay, I’ve had enough. You can let go of it now.” Ammon leveled off and headed back to base. His instructor didn’t say a word. He slowly shook his head. The guy had a lot of nerve, pulling such a stunt on him. Cocky little jerk! Arrogant, snot-nose kid!